SOUTHEAST BEEFS UP ACADEMIC STANDARDS; LOCAL EDUCATORS BELIEVE UNIVERSITY IS NOW TOUGHER

The nation's colleges have been accused of dumbing down America.

Some of that criticism was justified in the past, said Dr. Dale Nitzschke, Southeast Missouri State University president. But, he said, times have changed for the better at schools like Southeast that have raised admission standards and graduation requirements.

He thinks there is still room for more improvement. In today's global society, business majors should be required to take a foreign language, he said.

Nitzschke said colleges were in turmoil in the 1960s and 1970s while students protested over the Vietnam War and other social issues. Students didn't feel college was relevant to their lives, Nitzschke said.

Nitzschke experienced the turmoil: He was associate dean of the college of education at Ohio University in Athens when students rioted on May 13, 1970. The National Guard was called in. State troopers ushered him out of his office wearing a gas mask.

Nitzschke believes there wouldn't have been campus riots if colleges had provided a forum for discussion of the Vietnam War and other social issues.

Years later, as president of the University of New Hampshire at Durham, Nitzschke spoke to the students at the start of the Gulf War and made it a key topic of discussion on campus.

Nitzschke said the student revolt of the 1960s and 1970s led colleges to lower their academic standards and eliminate mandatory courses in math, science and foreign languages. Colleges instead offered "cafeteria-style education" where there were few requirements and students could choose from a smorgasbord of classes.

When colleges lowered their standards, the nation's high schools followed suit, Nitzschke said.

Colleges, in turn, spent millions of dollars on remedial courses to get students up to speed so they could take college-level courses, Nitzschke said.

Critics described it as a time of "unilateral educational disarmament."

Nitzschke said schools like Southeast have been rearming education in recent years.

Missouri colleges and universities have been leading the way by raising admission standards, including requiring higher scores on college entrance tests, he said.

Most entering college students now must have taken a core of basic courses in high school in order to be admitted.

Tougher college admission standards have forced Missouri's high schools to strengthen their graduation requirements, Nitzschke said.

"I think Missouri is doing an awful lot of things right," he said.

Southeast's faculty support the tougher standards, which have led to better students at the school, said Dr. John Hinni, dean of the School of University Studies.

"We have the best classes now that we have ever had," said Hinni. "These kids are good."

School officials predict that will translate into higher college-graduation rates down the road. At Southeast, only 34 percent of students who entered the school in 1989 graduated in six years.

School officials said the percentage is misleading because some students transfer to other colleges where they earn degrees.

Southeast and many other colleges have strong academic standards, said Hinni, who heads up a national group of educators.

Hinni is president of the Council for Administration of General and Liberal Studies. Founded last October, the group has about 300 member schools.

"I think the requirements are still there, but there are more choices," he said.

All Southeast students must take University Studies classes, which are general-education curriculum courses. Southeast students must take 16 courses totaling 48 hours of credit. Students can choose from a whole list of courses, but they must take a course from within various categories.

The result is that students have to take math, science, literature and history courses.

In the 1970s, students weren't required to take a single math class at Southeast; today, math is a requirement.

"Nobody gets out of here now without a course at least equivalent to college algebra," said Hinni.

Students aren't required to take American history; they can take a course in Islamic civilization or ancient Egypt instead. But many students still take American history, Hinni said.

After students have completed 75 credit hours of classes they must pass a writing exam. Since the university began requiring it in 1988, the number of students who fail it has declined from 20 percent of the student body to fewer than 10 percent, he said.

Students are required to meet tougher academic standards to get into some of Southeast's colleges. The Donald L. Harrison College of Business, for example, requires advanced math classes.

The University Studies program is designed to teach critical thinking, not produce students who can memorize a whole series of facts, Hinni said.

"I don't think colleges should be teaching students how to read a bus schedule or calculate carpet costs," said Hinni.

In today's information age, schools can't teach it all and students can't learn it all, he said.

So it is important to teach students how to learn -- how to access information in libraries and through computer networks, he said.

In University Studies, students are taught how to get on the Internet and use the library. Southeast has invested heavily in recent years in computer labs and computer-equipped classrooms for students.

Hinni said the amount of information on the Internet alone is staggering. A friend, who raises peppers, found a million recipes for peppers on the Internet, Hinni said.

As part of University Studies, Southeast is increasing its testing of students to see if they have learned critical-thinking skills.

At Southeast and many other schools, higher education is on the right track, Nitzschke and Hinni said.